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Ways of many Western countries’ encouraging occupation of Azerbaijani territories

The Azerbaijani foreign ministry has recently presented a report "Illegal economic and other activities on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan". After reading the report, the question arises whether Armenia needs the negotiation process.

Armenia has been occupying Azerbaijani territories and violating all norms of international and criminal law on the occupied territories for many years. All years Armenia has been exacerbating the conflict in the region and destabilizing the situation. Taking this into account, Yerevan's presence at the negotiating table is a lie.

The real criminals, namely, the Armenian authorities, support and encourage the illegal production and export on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

On the one hand, this is a political project as some types of products being manufactured on the occupied territories and exported via the territory of Armenia to Russia and other countries do not bring any economic benefit.

The complicated export route of illegally manufactured products to the international market comes expensive to the Armenian lobby, which pays for political speculations of Armenia.

Armenian authorities themselves plunder the wealth of the occupied lands. For the poorest country with few natural resources, mining industry on the occupied territories is a very important source of income. Large mineral reserves in Azerbaijan remained on the occupied territories - there are 155 deposits of various minerals, including five gold deposits.

Currently, Armenian authorities use these deposits as a source of personal enrichment.

In 2015 alone, Armenia illegally produced 3.6 tons of gold and it is unlikely that the Armenian authorities are ready to yield this wealth to Baku.

The activities and the origin of many workers of foreign mining companies in the occupied territories are obscure and often they are offshore companies. It seems that these firms belong to the representatives of the Armenian authorities.

Regarding the export of goods, the label of which says "made in Armenia", to the EU countries, Ukraine, the US, the UAE and Russia from the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan's other occupied territories, it reminds the "conflict diamonds" [also known as "blood diamonds"] concept.

A part of African diamonds, which were sold in the West for many years, became o source of financing for terrorist movements and eventually, they became known as "conflict diamonds."

In South Africa, where the first conference on "conflict diamonds" was held in 2000, nearly 50 countries announced the creation of a global system of control over the diamond trade [Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS)] from Jan. 1, 2003.

KPCS, in particular, involves the introduction of a special certificate containing the data about diamond's manufacturer and importer. It helped to avoid the entry of "blood diamonds" to the market.

In order to stop the indirect promotion of occupation, the international community should also monitor and prevent the sale of goods produced on the occupied lands.

For example, when purchasing products from Armenia, one can require certificates confirming that these goods were produced namely on its territory, but not on the occupied lands, which are internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan.

Thus, by turning a blind eye to violation of the international law by Armenia, the countries which buy the illegally produced goods, also participate in stealing Azerbaijan's natural resources.

Hopefully, taking into account the abovementioned factors, the international community will pay due attention to the facts of numerous crimes committed by the Armenian regime on the occupied territories and will take relevant measures to prevent them.